CarNet destinations

[GadgetGav]

Has anyone successfully sent a destination from the CarNet iPhone app to the car?
I tried it when the app thought I was driving a Passat and it didn't work, but I put it down to the app not really knowing what my car was. Now the app is straightened out, I thought I'd try it again yesterday morning. I found the destination in the app and sent it to the car. The app thinks it sent it (it also thinks it sent the previous attempt too) but I wasn't able to find in when I was in the car. I went to the destinations page in the navigation, but couldn't find them. Do I have to call CarNet from the i button in the car? I will have to dig out the manuals and see if it's explained in detail in there, but it seemed like it should be intuitive enough from the simple interface in the app.

 

[preilly44]

I tried it with my Android and didn't see it on the car. I thought I might not have waited long enough but I wasn't sure.

 

[jack8trades]

I had "successfully" sent a whole bunch of destinations from the web portal prior to a trip and was flabbergasted to not be able to find any of them in the nav while actually on the trip. Since the trip involved a stop at the dealership, I sat in the car with a salesman who had some experience and training with VW nav systems, though not with the E-Golf, or this particular issue. While we were talking to CarNet about it via the "i" button, and getting the now expected excuses and "you might have to wait a little longer," the salesman tried using the Send/Resend feature from the web portal (I was logged in via FireFox browser on a tablet, in "Request Desktop Site," mode.) The infotainment console was running the nav screen, and right away a message popped up that destination(s) had been added to the destination memory. Lo and behold, all the destinations I'd previously setup via the web portal were there, not just the one he'd resent.

I've since added destinations using the Android app, first while away from the car (which was locked/off,) to verify that the same thing occurs with the app, and once in the car could not find the new destination in the nav memory. Had the app resend the destination while the Nav screen was on, and right away the destination memory updated in real time.

Summary: send, or resend, destinations while the car is on and nav is active. I haven't tried it while a different infotainment screen is active, but I suspect it will still work -- the key I think being the infotainment system needs to be on.

 

[svento]

I'm not sure this is a very helpful answer, but I have tried sending destinations from the iOS app a few times and it's always worked. But... the part that initially confused me (and I think will confuse everyone) is that the destination doesn't pop up in any way on the screen. To go to the destination you sent from your phone, you need to go into nav, then pick something like recent destinations(?) or maybe favorites(?)... sorry I'm not near my car to look! But it's definitely a multi-step process to find the destination you transferred. It's definitely designed as though you're going to send a lot of "places I often go" destinations instead of being designed to use the app as a shortcut to tediously typing in the destination on the car's terrible touchscreen.

To me the obvious solution would be that as soon as the car received a new destination, that it pop up a screen asking if you want to set that as your new driving destination! But it doesn't.

 

[jack8trades]

Well, I was right, you don't have to be running the nav to receive the destinations remotely -- you just need to have the infotainment system on. This is what I saw when I was viewing Car Data and sent a new destination from my Android phone...

Go to the Nav screen, touch My dtns. then Dest. and Contacts

touch Last dtns....

And you'll find your new destination(s) in the Destination Memory by touching Dest. memory:

 

[GadgetGav]

I don't see the point of it if the infotainment system has to be on to receive destinations. Surely you'd only want to use the phone or desktop to send destinations to the car when you're not in the car... I can see that it has to have power to function electronically, but the car is never really off because it can receive CarNet instructions to turn the climate control on etc, so it should be able to receive destinations when "off" too.

I'll try looking in Last Dtns again although I'm pretty sure I looked there before.

 

[jack8trades]

Yes, I agree needing to have the system on to receive destinations is stupid. Even so, there is at least some value -- it's often much easier to locate/customize destinations via the web carnet portal, say on a laptop or tablet, IMO. It's common these days to find nearby WiFi to use for the laptop/tablet, if needed, to send the destination while in the car.

What you want to look at is Dest. memory, not Last dtns. Last dtns. is just the default choice of which type of destination to view in the destination list.

 

[Unbeliever]

I've sent destinations to it while sitting in my office while the car is in the parking lot, turned off, and they've arrived in the car, right where they should be.

 

[jack8trades]

I've sent destinations to it while sitting in my office while the car is in the parking lot, turned off, and they've arrived in the car, right where they should be.

You clearly have a better, more obedient car, or Car-Net (i.e. Verizon Telematics,) service than I do. I tried it again today, from the web portal, while the car was off and not charging, and the status in the web portal destination address book came up as pending. The destination did not appear in the navigation system even after 15 min. Tried resending while the car was off, but charging. Same results after 15 min. Drove home 4 hours later, still nothing in the nav. All the sends and resends of the destination in the address book still showed pending. Tried sending again, this time with the navigation system turned on (but the car off*,) and the destination didn't appear, which was interesting. Finally, turned the car on 10 min. later, still no new destination, so I resent it again from the web, and it showed up within 30 sec. on the nav system. Said it got 6 new destinations, which was the number of pending (re)sends of the same destination. There was only the one new one in the car's list, which is good -- really didn't want to have to delete 5 extra, duplicate entries.

What's now different is that the 6 new, duplicate entries in the web portal's destination address book (which are also shown in the Android app,) still show as pending. Even logging out and back in doesn't change that. Previously, entries always updated to successful after a refresh of the browser, even when they weren't actually received by the car.

* Recently learned by accident that you can turn it on by pressing the left knob which controls the volume, even while you don't have the key fob, meaning anyone who can get into your car can play with your nav system and see destinations, etc.

 

[EggGolf]

Indeed.

I spent some time adding the addresses of several friends the destinations section of the car net web page. Each time I added one I got the message that it had been sent successfully.

Needless to say...

No address updates. ANd as others have pointed out, the infotainment system needs to be on so I might has well do it from the terrible app on my phone.

I work in software and it has to actually work otherwise I'd be replaced by a robot (or intern) .

Carnet's software is rubbish. And the customer service isn't much better. I called them with questions when I had teething troubles, such as why the car wasn't charging - turned out I hadn't pushed the plug in all the way - which I was able to figure out while the customer service tech was rifling through the manual, which, like all vehicle manuals, has an abysmal index. Then I couldn't remove the plug from the car's socket. Turned out that using the remote unlock wouldn't do it - I had to use the master unlock button on the car door. Again, I figured this out whilst awaiting the customer service intern to flip through the unhelpful manual.

BTW, the supplemental manuals actually have more information about charging than the manual.

BTW, Volkswagen - there should be a section in the manual called 'charging' that goes through the charging process in microscopic detail and which is listed in the index as 'CHARGING' in BOLD CAPS.